Government and Rebellion eBook

to break open any citizen’s store or dwelling,
to search for, and seize foreign merchandise; sheriffs
also were compelled to assist in the work. The
sanctions of private life might, by this act be invaded
at any time by hirelings; and bad as it was in itself,
it was liable to more monstrous abuse. Then came
the “sugar bill,” imposing enormous
duties on various articles of merchandise from the
West Indies, and greatly crippling Colonial commerce:
then the infamous Stamp Act, by which every legal
instrument, in order to validity, must have the seal
of the British Government—­deeds, diplomas,
&c., costing from thirty-six cents to ten dollars
apiece: then the duty on tea; and, finally, the
quartering of soldiers on our citizens in time of peace,
for the express purpose of subjugating our industry
and energy to the selfish purposes of the crown.

It is enough to say, that the rebels against our Government
have suffered no oppression. They do not set
forth any legal ground of Secession. The government
has done nothing to call out their indignation, or
to inflict on them a wrong. They have had more
than their share of public office; they have had a
larger representation, in proportion to their free
citizens, than we have; they have been protected in
their claims, even against the convictions of the
North; we yielding, as a political demand, what we
do not wholly admit as a Christian duty. We have
assisted them by enactments, by money, and by arms,
in the preservation of a system at war with our conscience,
and with our liberties. We have paid for lands
which they occupy; and after all their indignities
and taunts, and attacks on our citizens, their plunders,
and their warlike demonstrations, we have been patient;
and are even now imposing on ourselves restraint from
the execution of that chastisement, which many of
their sober and awed citizens acknowledge to be just,
and which, if the call were made by the Executive,
would at once be hurled on the rebels by an indignant
people, like the rush of destiny.

Now, I grant, for I do not wish to make the matter
worse than it is against them, that in the North,
individuals have demanded more than the South were
able, at once, to give. Some have pushed reform
faster than it would bear, faster than the laws of
Providence would allow; but it was honestly and conscientiously
done. We have sometimes in our warmth, uttered
irritating words; but all this has been returned by
blows, and by savage vindictiveness. We have
shown a willingness, of late, to yield some things;
to abide by the sense of the whole people; but these
States are, by their rulers, declared out of the
Union, without appeal to the people; they have
commenced the war, and now they are regarded by the
whole world as in a state of rebellion, not of justifiable
revolution. They would submit to no method of
adjustment that we could honorably allow. They
desired war, as they have been for years preparing
for it, at the expense of the Government, and in its
service and trust, drawing their life from the bosom
which they now sting; and because freedom will no
longer bow, as it has done for a whole generation,
to their will, they rebel, proclaim a system of piracy,
and threaten the subjugation of the whole American
people. It is a deep, and long determined treason,
running into the whole national life, and is become
to ourselves a question of personal liberty.